hulk! smash!

As some of you know, like any good 10-, I mean 26-, year-old, I have returned from a sun- and friend-soaked weekend to write a sentence full of dangling hyphens. I mean, to provide a good home for two hermit crabs I bought on the boardwalk.

Their names are Hulk and Smash. (Angie wanted to call them both "Better Than A Boyfriend," but that was a tad impractical as well as factually inaccurate, as you will soon see.) Hulk, appropriately, has a green shell; Smash's shell is chipped and broken as though it cannot contain his infinite, inarticulate anger. He's even missing parts of his front leg-claw things, he is so smashful. Hefk put it best: Instead of a dog, which is what I really want and really can't have, I got two walking shells that are incapable of showing dog-like love and that will probably die very quickly. Whee! It's fun to be me.

So I guess it serves me right that Hulk and Smash hate the world. They HATE. I put them in Meatball's old tank and bought them three pieces of coral. I am following all the slightly hysterical directions of the book I got free with their purchase, which says they like to burrow, so one should put at least a few inches of rocks in an enclosed tank that retains humidity.

Wow, do they like to burrow. They spend so much energy and time burrowing that you can't get them out of their new tank without taking out the coral, their water and food dishes, the other shells and some of the rocks. (It was easy to get them out of their temporary wire cage, where they could not burrow, but, sayeth the book, they were terribly unhappy.) They also ran around a lot then when you took them out -- all over the Scrabble board and the table at the beach house -- but now, after you unbury them, they are really displeased and they let you know by not moving until they've already been out for 20 minutes, by which time your roommates are no longer amused with the new pets and just want you to get them off the freaking coffee table already so we can watch TV without worrying if they're falling off and Gwen, why the hell did you get these stupid things in the first place and do they have to stay on the mantle where everyone can see them.

To which I answer yes, yes they do, but it's not easy to make a case for Hulk and Smash. Every time you get near them, they basically do the hermit-crab equivalent of screaming obscenities while warding you off with garlic necklaces and the sign of the cross.

Are they dying already? Do they hate living away from the beach? Should I be worried about this? I mean, I do care -- I brought these living things here and I have an obligation to them, but... I don't know. They aren't good pets. I really want them to be. Can I train them to greet me at the door or something, do you think?